Inquisition
by Jayalalita
Summary: Luna Lovegood approaches a wary Lucius Malfoy with an unsettling proposition...


**A/N: Written using prompts from tictactales LJ community: Hoodie - Interrogation Kink - Fidgety.**

Lucius Malfoy was a man with no taste for finding himself in situations which gave him cause for doubt. He had his turn at playing some dangerous games, and it came back to bite him time and again, and now he did not seek out for threats to his security. This threat, however, sought him out, in the form of a strange, doll-like young woman, with the face of an eager, attentive child, and the eyes of some ancient, knowing creature, at once imploring him, and seeing right into his soul. He sighed, tucked away his doubts, and turned the doorknob leading to the cellar.

* * *

><p>It had been four years since the Debacle, but he still tried to keep a low profile. So it was grating that, on one of his few public outings in that time to test the public waters of Diagon Alley, he was accosted by a light, airy voice behind him as he perused the out of the way stacks of Flourish and Blotts.<p>

"Hello, Mr. Malfoy." He turned, and there stood an all too familiar, and all too unwelcome, head of wispy blonde hair and watery grey eyes peering up at him.

"Miss Lovegood," coolly, swallowing his immediate reaction of irritation tempered with dread. If this could not be avoided, he would at least maintain a dignified bearing.

How unperturbed she seemed, asking how he was, her head tilted slightly to one side, her expression open, inquisitive. His nerves were on edge, teetering, waiting for her to get to the point, to bring up the past, to make her accusations. These pleasantries were unnatural; they were not friendly acquaintances.

And then, "Things have been difficult for me for some time." Here it comes, he thought. "I have had a hard time concentrating on anything. My work is going nowhere. Nothing has been quite the same. But maybe you can help me." Blackmail, was that it? Threats, demands for money? "This is a very public place, Mr. Malfoy. It might be better if we went somewhere more private."

What could he do? Refuse to speak with the girl, walk away and risk her muddying the waters, perhaps even creating a scene here in the store?

"Where would you suggest?"

"I have a room at the Leaky Cauldron. We can talk there."

And so he agreed to meet in her room in half an hour, a buffer of time between their entrances to avoid suspicion. Enough time for his better sense to vacillate between working out a dozen ways to handle the situation, none fully satisfactory, and simply not arriving at all. He loathed this tentative, apprehensive anxiety which controlled him. He once would have come at this silly girl with full firmness and assertion, and dashed her little schemes to bits. Prison, betrayal, and long legal ordeals had crippled his confidence. He hated the girl for leading him on, hated himself for being vulnerable enough to be led.

In the end he came to her door. He gritted his teeth with determination not to let the girl get the upper hand. She welcomed him in, demure, serene. What could she have up her sleeve? In this close, private space, she looked younger than ever, frail, ethereal. How old was she? Around Draco's age it would be; hardly more than a child. She beckoned him to a chair, and took her own seat on the bed, facing him.

She regarded him a moment, an elf considering a mortal, and said, "I want to go back to Malfoy Manor."

A blinking twitch, but he caught himself. "Pardon me, Miss Lovegood?"

"It must be strange to you, my approaching you in this way, what with our connection." It was vaguely annoying how calm, rational, even sympathetic her tone was, when his own gut was a knot of tension. "But I assure you I mean no trouble. I saw you in Flourish and Blotts, and it had an effect on me. So many things came back, things I have been trying to bury." A pause, a glance into the air, to some place he could not see, then her eyes met his once more. "But I liked it, Mr. Malfoy. I liked it more than any feeling I have had in years. It made sense to me. And I don't want to bury that feeling anymore."

He swallowed. "What exactly are you trying to say?"

"I would like us to make an arrangement." Such large eyes, but frank. "If it does not appeal to you, I understand. But I want to explore this. I want to see where it might lead."

"What exactly? I do not know what you are speaking of!"

His voice was getting higher, shriller, as hers grew more calm. "I wish to recreate some of the experiences which occurred to me, to us, at Malfoy Manor. I think if I get some of this out in the open, if I can relive it by my own terms, it won't haunt me as it has. I want to examine it from a position in which I can affect it, in which I have some say what happens. I want to make it mine, instead of being owned by what has passed."

Speechless. More gritting of teeth, but no more determination.

"It need not be a pleasureless act, Mr. Malfoy. Quite the contrary. Indeed, pleasure is exactly what I had in mind for this experiment."

* * *

><p>The night was cool, the air thick with mist, and Lucius felt on a fool's errand as he waited for her arrival. A crack, and she was there, Apparated a small distance from the gates of Malfoy Manor. Her face was luminous as the moon beneath the hood of her sweater. He straightened to his full height and approached, resigned to what would occur, and resolved to enjoy it.<p>

Her arm was thin, warm, as he grasped it roughly and led her toward the gates. She offered a subtle resistance; not struggling, but keeping herself taut against his direction. This came as no surprise; she had told him she might put up a fight, and to continue regardless. They entered through a discreet back doorway which led to a network of hidden corridors that house-elves had been scuttling through for generations of service to the Malfoys. The passages were cramped and dimly lit, and quiet; the sound of their breath and movement and shuffling clothing filled the space. He began to get excited. He had not used these corridors in years, not since the old days when he and his former compatriots would abduct Muggles, Mudbloods, traitors to their heritage, women just as often as men, and take them through to whichever part of the manor would be used for the ensuing activities. He associated this narrow space with bound, blindfolded women, panting heavily with escalating fear as they were herded along to be taunted, questioned, or outright tortured and killed. This was not the same, he had to remember. This was not the same.

He opened a door hidden in the wall of the cellar, and pushed her to the floor. The door swung shut behind him, and he circled her, as a beast its quarry. She looked up at him with soft defiance, her legs, clad in woollen stockings, splayed and uncovered beneath her.

"Do you know why you are here?" he asked.

"Yes."

"And have any idea what is going to happen to you here?"

She said nothing, her gaze upon him unwavering.

"You shan't want to make yourself difficult, my dear. I am not a man without compassion. If you are a good girl, and cooperate with a few simple requests, you may return home, where I am sure your father is anxious to learn of your safety." Crouching on the ground before her, he took her round, sweet chin in his hand. "Now, will you tell me what I wish to know?"

She shook her head slowly, her face not leaving his touch. Her eyes were wide, bright, distracting.

He leaned closer to her and spoke softly, a whisper against her skin. "It is not in jest that I say you must make yourself easy, my dear," this last with a hint of contempt. "You are a lovely creature, and I would like you to remain lovely." He brushed the tip of his nose along her cheek. "I wish to see the beautiful things of this world protected. Let me protect you. Cooperate."

"No."

He stood up quickly and back-handed her face, controlled, but hard enough to make the desired impression. "I will leave you to consider your options. Be prepared with the correct response in an hour." He strode away from her prone form, exiting the cellar and heading straight for the liquor cabinet in his study.

* * *

><p>Folly, folly, folly, he told himself. There was nowhere this could lead but trouble. But the game continued all the same. He returned to find her huddled against the wall, but her eyes fell upon him and did not turn away, and remained clear and insistent through every trial, every demand, every act of punishment or reward which he inflicted upon her.<p>

The hours slipped away, and he finished with her, or was it she with him? at the cusp of dawn. He released her bonds, and they corrected their clothing in silence. He escorted her to the spot where they had met, crunching through the night's thin coating of frost on the grass. She stopped and turned to him in the hazy blue light, and squeezed his hand briefly. "I will send you an owl." And crack, she was gone.

* * *

><p>After a week, he was mad for her. They had had two more encounters, by her arrangement, each more intoxicating, more dangerously close to the edge than the last. Their scenarios were changing, growing fuller, more elaborate. The roles they assumed were blurring, resembling themselves less and less, shifting instead to nameless, faceless anonymities, the questioner and the questioned. And then there were the moments, deep into the play, when even that was lost, all was cast away, and his skin was hers, and her pale hair and his entangled, and they had no identity but the one they shared.<p>

After two weeks he wanted to fall down and worship her, to thank her for this freedom, for her mercy, for her tender submission. He prayed secretly in his heart that she might whip him, beat him, destroy him, tear him to shreds, but he knew he must serve her, serve her with his power, serve her with force, and so he continued at her bidding. She would stay no longer than a night, and the days, the nights, the minutes, the seconds in between her visits, of idle nothingness and idle waiting, kept him pacing the empty manor, and going through record quantities of drink. Sometimes he wondered how long it would last, how Narcissa would react if she found out, if she would decide to move back into the Malfoy residence and create mischief. But mostly he wondered how long Luna would have a taste for him. Luna, Luna. Child of the moon, sphinx, innocent, cherub.

In the third week, she lay against him in a sleepy moment, and ran her fingers along the Azkaban tattoo on his throat. "We all bear our marks," she said, and he cradled her in his lap like a child. Later that night, wrists bound behind her back, flesh radiant, white where she was unmarked, brilliant red on the fresh welts, she whispered, calling him father, father, pleading, don't let them take me, and shed three quick, rain-soft tears, the first and only she would shed.

In the third month, she asked for a brandy and told him she must leave. "We have been a comfort to each other, I think. Now it is time to move on." She was warm, kind, sensible, sweet, as she lovingly put an end to it, and he could have wept or begged or stabbed her to stop that sweetness. "I want you to be happy. Lucius. You will be happy. I will remember you. There is no way I can forget. But now I may think of you and think of sweetness, and for that I thank you. Goodbye, Lucius." She set down her glass, and walked to where he sat, bending to kiss his forehead lightly. He could not speak, could not move, as she walked out of the room, her gentle step barely discernible as she moved down the hallway, and let herself out of Malfoy Manor, never to return.


End file.
